I am mainly concerned with a few of my millies doing poorly currently. I lost a few frags after my PH dropped around the 7.71 range.
At around 6.5 sps corals cannot lay down calcium, at that PH the crushed coral media melts in my reactor.
Some of my monties, polker star and rainbow monti are also doing poorly, portions dying off. Also lost my blue millies. No noticible problems on other sps except very very slow growth.
I am mainly concerned with a few of my millies doing poorly currently. I lost a few frags after my PH dropped around the 7.71 range.
At around 6.5 sps corals cannot lay down calcium, at that PH the crushed coral media melts in my reactor.
Some of my monties, polker star and rainbow monti are also doing poorly, portions dying off. Also lost my blue millies. No noticible problems on other sps except very very slow growth.
It may be worth noting that the pH scale is logarithmic...meaning the difference between 7.71 and 6.5 is significant.
pH is the measurement of hydrogen ions in solution.
[H+](@pH 6.5) = 0.0000003162
[H+](@pH 7.71) = 0.00000007762
so it is roughly 4.5 times more hydrogen ions at 6.5 than 7.71.
The biggest point is, that you'd have to overdose something acidic or have something bazaar happen to get to the 6.5 level. 7.71 is pretty normal unless you are dosing alkalinity to keep it up.
Maintaining alkalinity at a consistent level is probably the most important aspect besides nutrients to keeping sps corals.
I would also add that you want to be sure your probes are calibrated and test kits are accurate particularly if you are going to make changes based on the readings.
Since this thread is now a couple weeks old, how are things looking? Hopefully better?
I purchased an oxygen tank last week and ran the line into my skimmer all day long increasing the setting for oxygen concentration. It had absolutely no effect on my PH. I was surprised, expecting it to raise at least slightly as people experienced when they ran an air line outdoors.
It only cost $35, so it was worth the experient. My fish seem to be breathing easier, and someof the corals expaned their polyps more than normal. Guess I expected it to work opposite of the way C02 works in my calcium reactor; raising my PH. Guess I can use it to help aerate fresh salt water mix.
I lost my red planet milli after a few more nights down to 7.71. Just pealed away, never had luck with that coral, second time I lost that coral. Everything else looks OK. My tank wants to sink to that Low PH level contantly. I got rid of my dosing pumps and disconected the calcium reactor, which seemed to make the PH worse. I will put it back on line when I get my PH under control.
I modified a few inexpensive rio pumps deliver the Alk faster, and added a kalk stir last week. This seems to give me a little more control over the PH. I can give it a quick boost from my phone now if I notice it getting low. I am trying to get it to stay around 8.00 by dosing schedule.
There are simple ways to increase pH if the cause is excess CO2 including reverse lighting a sump with Cheato, running the skimmer intake line outside, 2-part dosing also helps (at least the Alk part) and Kalk dosed top-off water..
I use a simple Soda-Lime CO2 scrubber. It works great (I average a 0.20 pH increase.) It's virtually no maintenance and inexpensive - On my small small tank (~70 gal) and skimmer, the media lasts about 9 months Replacement color changing media (Soda Lime) is readily available. You can use any canister filter instead of purchasing a commercial unit.
For me, it was a simple (and cheap) way to resolve my pH issues that is stable and does not alter other water chemistry (i.e Alk or CA.).
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man. - George Bernard Shaw
I took your advise and ordered the soda lime from BRS. A while back, I was told that the media only lasted a few days and was very expensive which is why I tried the O2 tank test for this result.
There are simple ways to increase pH if the cause is excess CO2 including reverse lighting a sump with Cheato, running the skimmer intake line outside, 2-part dosing also helps (at least the Alk part) and Kalk dosed top-off water..
I use a simple Soda-Lime CO2 scrubber. It works great (I average a 0.20 pH increase.) It's virtually no maintenance and inexpensive - On my small small tank (~70 gal) and skimmer, the media lasts about 9 months Replacement color changing media (Soda Lime) is readily available. You can use any canister filter instead of purchasing a commercial unit.
For me, it was a simple (and cheap) way to resolve my pH issues that is stable and does not alter other water chemistry (i.e Alk or CA.).
I use the soda lime reactor as well, and +1 on all the comments above regarding ease of use. My tank is in a basement and the excess CO2 can build up, especially if the kids have friends over and they're down there all day and night. I get about a 0.3 pH unit bump (8.0-8.1 up to 8.3-8.4) from using the soda lime (run my skimmer air through a DIY reactor with the media in it).
I started with the 2 Little Fishies product from BRS, but was going through a container every 4-6 weeks (depending on how much time the kids were in the basement) (150 gallon tank). Someone pointed me to this product. Same performance and significantly cheaper.